“Find it. Face it. Feel it. Finish it.”
We say this phrase to clients frequently.
We are talking about old sads. Old sads that haven’t been finished have a way of lurking around causing all kinds of difficulties in life. One of the worst things old unfinished sads do is cause anxiety.
Anxiety is undue fear. Specifically, fear of losing something in the future.
When we are unpracticed in sadness we turn to fear as it’s substitute.
Let’s talk about sadness for a minute, apart from anxiety. In its most basic form sadness is about love. We feel sad when we lose something we love. As Deb always says, sadness is proof of love. If we don’t love something and lose it, we aren’t sad, rather, it is like “oh well, that’s gone, on to something else.” When we lose something that we love, we are always sad. Love and sad go hand in hand (just like love and joy do, but that is another lesson for later).
What happens when we don’t finish a sad, is that it morphs into other symptoms, most often anger or anxiety. The longer it is left unfinished, the stronger the substitute feelings become. This is why so many people are suffering from undue anger and extreme anxiety.
Most of us had sads happen to us when we were growing up. Just today a young woman told me about an incident that happened in middle school. It was a very big sad. She acknowledged that she finds it hard to think about that event because of how awful it was. She can still feel how her body felt in that circumstance when she talks about it now. This is proof that she isn’t finished with the sad of that event. Needless to say, the presenting reason for her coming to me for therapy was “anxiety disorder.” Her anxiety is left over sadness from middle school.
Granted there are some massive sads in our past that weren’t finished at the time because it wasn’t safe to feel sad at the time. I have known this personally. When I was a toddler and little girl sexual abuse was rampant in my father’s family. It wasn’t safe for me to feel all the sad of that abuse back then. I had to wait until I was safely out of that environment to really finish the big sad of abuse. I am grateful for my therapists who assisted me by guiding me through such an awful old sad. Now I can say with full honestly that the that big sad of abuse is over. So yes, some sads have to wait, but eventually they must be met head on and finished.
Ron and I are compelled to help clients find the old sads that weren’t finished so that they don’t hold the power of fear of more loss in our current life.
Please consider that anxiety is always the fear of losing something that is important to you. For a child, that almost always means a felt sense of safety, in little things as well as in big things. When those old sads stick around, it doesn’t matter how old you are, they still feel like really, really big fears. To get rid of anxiety you have to get into sad. To get into sad, you need to be in a safe place. When you can face old sad and finish it, you find that you have energy and even a confidence of trusting that the things you love will bring you joy and bring you sad.
Like joy, sad is natural when we love.
Please, be courageous and find someone to help you find, face, feel and finish your sad so you can throw your anxiety away.
Dr Ron and Dr Deb